Continuing onward with the new mOAR division of and/OAR, we next have Yuki Kaneko's Rut, a beautiful sparkling kaleidoscopic homage to the common wonders of day to day life, which displays this young composer's already great talent for subtly weaving together complex textures of electronic and acoustic sound sources into cleverly abstract melodic musings.

A first "draft" or version of Rut was released on Magic Book Records in Japan a few months prior. This version is remastered and remixed (with one new track) which improves the flow and heightens the emotive dynamics of the entire release. Needless to say, and/OAR is quite pleased to present this version of Yuki Kaneko's debut solo album which is limited to 300 copies (the Magic Book version was issued at 500 copies).

Yuki Kaneko is a sound artist based in Tokyo. Since 2001 Yuki has been involved with acoustic sound design, soundtracks for various stage productions, sound installations, and he runs his own CDR label called PhaseRubRec. One of Yuki's projects (hum) was featured in Improvised Music From Japan 2009 magazine/CD x 3.

TOUCHING EXTREMES (December 2008)Incalculable. Such is the number of records that I've listened to featuring computer-based melodic materials constructed upon fragments of samples, regular instruments and tiny bell-like snippets, with the inevitable addition of glitch, white noise interference, small fractures, environmental shades. This particular one - a different remake of a CD originally released by Magic Book in Japan and which this writer is not familiar with - has the merit of sounding a little more suggestive, even touching in parts ("Cycle" and "Moment" are very much likeable "songs" indeed). Those snapshots seem to evoke memories from childhood and summers spent in useless search of meanings while staring at the sea. But, we ask, how many chances are given to artists who release music that just places itself in a veritable mass of similar outings? On the other hand, dedicating a hour or less to a record like "Rut" is always better than watching a single minute of TV, therefore I'll keep the similarities, shut up and enjoy this electronic concoction - if not with gratitude, at least thinking that it sounds nice for its large part. Now that I'm listening to it again, relaxed and semi-sleepy, it is almost perfect for the occasion. (Massimo Ricci)

BLEEP43 (October 2008)It’s often difficult to write about this sort of music without verbally disembowelling oneself, venturing deep into a thesaurus in order to seek out adjectives long gone; dusty phrases extricated from a treasure trove of musical descriptions not used by anyone else. Kaneko, a Tokyo-based sound artist specialising in installations, has put together an intriguing album of flickering noises and found sounds that threatens to overhaul my own musical dictionary, as clusters of electronic bubbles and whispers coalesce and fall apart over 11 tracks.

“Rut” is warm in feel, inevitably recalling the balmy fragments of noise that shaped Fennesz’s “Endless Summer”, but retaining a microscopic element, as no sound is elongated or indeed allowed to dominate proceedings, often fading into the background to allow another element to breathe. Melody hovers in the distance, never coming to the fore until late on in the album when traditional instrumentation such as the hint of a guitar appears on “Moment”. There’s no doubt that the word “playful” comes to mind, and it’s an aesthetic that is common amongst other Japanese sound artists, such as Sawako, never wanting to fully phrase a musical idea to completion, instead happy to let the ideas go their own way, often collapsing and eventually rebuilding of their own volition. The minuscule attention to detail means that often the bigger picture is missed out upon, but I don’t think that Kaneko’s work suffers from this as his mission seems to be to colouring the sonic world of everyday life, the droplets of water and the incessant chattering of electronic drones and metallic noises that permeate “Rut” recalls the idiosyncratic mix of sustained silence and urbanity that colours living in a place like Tokyo. (Toby Frith)

THE MILK FACTORY (September 2008)Yuki Kaneko's programming, though it often bears resemblance to the whistles and squawks of an obviously intrigued and excited parakeet, operates well within the contours of coherent identity. With continued attention, what at first blush seemed a trifle meandering and indulgent, soon leaks into the subconscious owing to its untrammeled imagination, natural lucidity, and stylistic and thematic considerations and limitations.

The album is something of a homage to summertime - but the parallel is largely of a symbolic sort: tracks aren't concerned with transcription, nor observation for that matter; they maintain, reassess, and coquettishly play around with their distance from and relation to this point of reference, this aura of summer that, though always suggested, only ever appears in fragmented, less familiar forms. A common, silver-footed momentum is established from the outset and sustained. Kaneko has an aptitude for sounding fresh and largely free from cliche while not appearing self-consciously outlandish. It plummets into a series of effusive free-ranging tumbles with shunted and clanging particles and adroit, gently spilling loops of percussion and other anonymous instruments. The instruments and dense scrum of field recordings generally play a shadowing and shading role. They accommodate the flickering electronic particles, agitated percussively at a molecular level, in ways that set their idiosyncrasies to advantage, cast them in shifting, relatively unfamiliar lights and whet the appetite for more.

It's thus as much an invitation to ponder as it is a journey through a particular soundpool. This ferment of textures and quick pulses that began the work are then besieged and decanted as the album ambles on. With all the necessity and graceful degradation of a summer as it swings into a temperate fall, the space opens up while the elements themselves are truncated. Its this very trajectory that arrests the attention most; this swift, sure-footed sequence which reserves a place for and takes advantage of each moment of contrast and continuity and, in so doing, better enables one to view and experience each of the calligraphic gestures in full. Almost as a rule of thumb, records which deal in such imaginary menagerie make concessions to button-pushing and narrow dynamics. Kaneko doesn't give an inch. He canvasses such terrain with quiet authority, producing pieces that are febrile and precise, sharp and cleansing. (Max Schaefer)

SMALLFISH (September 2008)and/OAR's sister label, mOAR, releases its second album and, blow me down, if it's not an absolute beauty. Yuki Kaneko's "Rut" is an instantly likeable rummage through delicate electronic music that brings to mind labels such as 12k or Plop. There's a playfulness to the sounds and arrangements (for example, the cheeky rhythm structure on the first track) yet it has its serious side too with some killer manipulations and textural work. Kind of like Sora meeting Sawako round at the Spekk office and recording the outcome. If you like any of the previously mentioned artists or labels, this is a must listen. I feel mOAR may well be going places and as such I'm very pleased to be able to bring you this fabulous release.(Mike Oliver)